


this is where i leave you

by starvels (dinosaur)



Series: Cap-IM Bingo [4]
Category: Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Fae & Fairies, Forbidden Love, Genderfluid Character, Intimacy, M/M, Magic, Other, Poetry, Stony Bingo 2017, Trans Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 13:10:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11532927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaur/pseuds/starvels
Summary: Steve and Tony are fey from opposite ends of their world. Steve covets their times together far more than anyone can ever know.





	this is where i leave you

**Author's Note:**

> for my cap-im bingo space of "non prose." some limerick-y stuff. 
> 
> this is a universe heavily inspired by laurell k. hamilton's meredith gentry books. basically, the sidhe are like the ~royal fey and there's a golden seelie court and a dark seelie court, associated with the things you would assume. what's important is that steve is unseelie, tony is seelie and their love is forbidden but so good. 
> 
> title from [palace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnI7n0uoKWc) by hayley kiyoko

 

 _This is where I keep you in my mind_  
_I need you to be free_

 _So this is where I leave you_  
_Sitting in a palace covered in gold inside my head_  
_This is where I see you_  
_On a bed of roses when I wanna kiss your silhouette_  
_This where I leave you_

palace | hayley kiyoko

 

 

Tony is humming as he slips from the bed.

“Mm,” Steve mumbles, into the soft satin pillow. “Must you?”

“Duties, my dear.”

Steve sighs and stretches, arching his back to try and catch Tony’s eyes.

Tony waves a scrap of a thong at him, “No, you menace.”

“Shucks,” Steve says, not at all contrite.

Raising an eyebrow, Tony angles himself to Steve’s benefit when he bends down to pick up and pull on the rest of his lacy underthings.

Steve has barely had enough time to pay proper attention to them. Tony’d slunk down to the room in a draping of pure, lightest blue today and the way it had set off his eyes, the swirls of lace like constellations against his dark skin, had called to Steve hard and heady. His mouth had been pressed wet to Tony before they’d even made it all the way through the door.

Dangerous, delicious.   

Steve reaches out a hand to Tony’s flank and fits his thumb to one of the dimples at Tony’s lower back.

Tony’s fingers brush Steve’s as he wraps himself back in lace.

So often, watching Tony put on clothes is more enticing than watching him take them off. The delicate slip of fabric over whatever curves and sleek lines of the body he’s chosen for that day, is like a good mulled wine. Steve wishes he could roll the whole of him over his tongue.

Tony’s hand comes back to cover Steve’s for a second.

His eyes are still soft, languid from their lovemaking. The light of his magic is still thrumming under his skin. It still calls to Steve, pulls the same glow up in Steve’s skin.

“Must you?” Steve asks, just once again.

Tony’s eyes flash for just a moment, the iris rings of blue and silver that mark him high fey, shifting like some kind of strange magical mechanics. No one else has eyes like Tony.

“A fortnight,” Tony says, eventually.

Two weeks till he touches Tony again, then. Two weeks until he is allowed to look at him as anything other than an enemy.

“Court’s keeping you busy,” Steve says, idly sneaking a finger under the edge of Tony’s thong.

A smile sneaks on to Tony’s face.

Briefly, Steve imagines what he could do to make that smile go away, push down his finger into where Tony must still be aching and wet, full of Steve. But it’s a hard choice.

For one, Tony’s smile is beautiful.

For two, both of them are due back to their respective courts soon.

He lets Tony go pick up his tunic and shrug it on, come back to Steve.

“It is,” Tony allows, “The same as you, captain.”

His hand trails over the inside of Steve’s forearm, where he still has a healing gash, gestures at the rest of Steve’s molted body, the similar gashes over the rest of his arms, the burns on his chest, close enough to his nipple Tony hadn’t been able to resist it.

It still hurts. Steve relishes it.

“True,” Steve sighs again and moves to sit on the edge of the bed. “But a fortnight?”

Tony taps a silly rhythm against the inside of Steve’s elbow, lets a trail of magic curl into his words. It plays shadows on the walls, turns the words echoing and colorful;

“Covet what you simply must,  
To hold me in no scanty lust,  
Big crabapple Steve,  
Loved since yestereve,  
Please, a fortnight to plan for your sweet bust.”

Steve laughs. “That was terrible.” Which Tony knew and did on purpose, just to make Steve laugh. Tony is such a strange, delightful contrast.

Tony sniffs, “I am not the court jester, good sir.”

“No,” Steve says, tugging on Tony’s tunic to get him to lean close, easily assailable, “You’re its knight.”

“Hmm,” Tony hums into the kiss, “but what does that make you.”

“That’s easy,” Steve says, “I’m the dragon.”

“Come to eat me?” Shifting to straddle Steve’s bare legs, Tony glances up from under his lashes. He’s a dreadfully pretty thing, all promise and brutal lust. His hands of power could melt any fey from their bones, and Steve feels so safe under them. But then, Tony allows Steve’s treacherously pointed teeth along his inner thighs.

“Burn you up,” Steve whispers, too serious.

“Ah,” Tony sings, flexing his hands against Steve’s chest, “but what a way to go.”

Steve loops his lower set of arms around Tony’s waist. “What a way,” he agrees.

They hold each other one last time before they must leave.

Steve will need to clear the room, protecting again human tools of fingerprint collecting and DNA, and fey tools of tracking spells snuck on spiders and speaking tags woven into curtains. He will pull on his armor and shield and holsters and leave this space behind again.

It aches, to erase this part of them, to leave no trace of each other anywhere.

But, Steve is beholden to his court, sworn to service and Tony doesn’t belong to Steve.

Tony belongs with the golden court. He’s one of their most gifted, one of their most far-sighted. He’s brought them into the 21st century while retaining the magic at the core of their sidhe hearts and homes. It’s something Steve’s court hasn’t managed. They live in the past. Steve would never take the future from Tony, would never jeopardize that for him.

Still.

He wonders if this is what they will be doing for the rest of time. Forever has a different meaning to them, those of a people where immortality is a reality and death is merely a friend they invite for tea.

Tony and Steve, the two of them, secreting away their affections, pledging their loyalties to opposite courts. Ever and ever, amen.

It’s lonely.

It’s what they have.

“Tell me another terrible limerick,” Steve whispers into the curve of Tony’s neck.

Tony hesitates for a moment, and then wraps his arms around Steve’s neck and begins,

“A young upstart marigold,  
A coy redbird overbold,  
mighty delight and  
overshot sun fight  
to swallow the blue-blue world.”

At the end, he pauses again. Then, he starts another.

Steve lets the words wash over him. He collects the sound of Tony’s voice in the rain gutters of his chest to hold onto through the drought.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> the tumblr post for this fic is [[here]](https://starvels.tumblr.com/post/163110598991/this-is-where-i-leave-you-starvels-10k-e) and my tag for all my bingo fics is [[here]](https://starvels.tumblr.com/tagged/stony-bingo-2017).
> 
> thanks for reading <3 comments and critiques are my fave!


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